It was another wild week
of college football, full of almost comebacks, upsets, and coaches, like
always, finding new ways to lose (I’m looking right at you Willie Taggart). Let’s
jump in here:
Texas
almost blew a 21 point fourth quarter lead to Oklahoma
The Longhorns held on to
win 48-45, but needed a last second kick to do so after the Sooners erased a
45-24 deficit in the final 10:18. The 93 points scored on Saturday were the
most in the history of the Red River Showdown, and it’s no wonder that OU fired
their longtime defensive coordinator Mike Stoops yesterday after the embarrassing
performances they’ve been slapping up the last few years. The Sooners aren’t
eliminated from playoff contention yet, but they’ll need to win out and hope
that Texas does also so they can play them again in the Big 12 Title Game and
avenge this defeat. The Longhorns have the worst loss of any top 10 team, but I
don’t think a 12-1 Texas team that would have a victory over West Virginia and Oklahoma, potentially one of them twice, would get left out unless we get multiple undefeated teams.
Of course, then again, I’m
not sure any of these Big 12 teams are worthy of being in the playoff because
of how lackadaisical they all are on the defensive end. Texas was on the way to
one of the best performances of the season, a three touchdown beatdown against
a Top 10 team on a neutral field, before their defense completely went in the
toilet and Kyler Murray started going crazy. Sure, I give them credit for the
win, and they’ve got their quarterback now in Sam Ehlinger, but I’m out on the
Big 12 completely as a league on the national stage. It’s a pillow fight
conference where defensive players occasionally run into the ball carrier and
sometimes knock him down. Every team in this league is the same, only Texas and
OU have more fast guys and West Virginia has the best quarterback. The
lack of defensive effort, scheme, or whatever it may be, is the reason we haven’t
had a national champion from this league since Texas in 2005. And since the
implementation of the playoff, Oklahoma has made it twice and given up a
combined 1,057 yards in their two games. They get in these games, go up against
more physical teams, and get manhandled. The Pac 12 has the same problem, if
only to a slightly lesser degree. I’m not saying you have to be the ’71 Nebraska
Cornhuskers Blackshirt defense that allowed only 104 points all year, but there’s
also a reason that Nick Saban and Alabama have won five national titles since 2009,
and it’s not because they play defense like a turnstile.
Side note: I don’t think
I’ve ever seen a faster person at the quarterback position than Kyler Murray.
He literally looks like what Tyreek Hill would look like at that position, only
if you gave him Baker Mayfield’s arm. He's really incredible to watch, and it's almost a shame he's going to be pursuing a baseball career after the season, because it'd be fascinating to see what he'd look like in the NFL.
LSU
played like we all thought they would before the season and lost to Florida
Joe Burrow threw
interceptions on the last two LSU drives, including a back-breaking pick six
with under two minutes to go, while Florida picked up their third consecutive
conference win and improved to 5-1 in Dan Mullen’s first year. It’s incredible
to me how much better the Gators look compared not only to last year, but even
just a few weeks ago in the Kentucky game, when Feleipe Franks appeared like he’d
never even seen a football before and the defense’s tackling was more
embarrassing than Edgy Peter Parker.
That’s the power of
coaching, something Mullen can certainly do, and it once again just goes to show that
if you’re a good football coach, you can turn a floundering program around quickly. Mullen
doesn’t even have an average quarterback and he’s still finding ways to win. I
just got done banging on the Big 12, but Texas was inarguably better in Tom
Herman’s 19th career game on Saturady than they were in his 1st, or
even his 15th. There are no three or four rebuilding jobs in college
football, particularly not at the big time programs. As a Tennessee fan, we’ll
know everything we need to know about Jeremy Pruitt sometime next year. If they’re
still getting blown out, can’t tackle, and can’t consistently move the ball by the middle of next season,
then I’m not sure why he’d get a Year 3. I’m 100% serious. It’s like Matt Damon
said in Rounders; “Rule number one:
throw away your cards the moment you know they can’t win. Fold the f*&#@%
hand.” Plus, and I’ve printed this before a million times and will a million times more, since the implementation of the SEC Championship Game in 1992,
every coach that has won the league had at least nine victories by his second
year at the school he won the conference at.
Florida now finds themselves
squarely in the SEC East race, and they have a workable schedule the rest of
the way. Here’s their final six: at Vanderbilt, bye week, Georgia in
Jacksonville, home for Missouri, home for South Carolina, home for Idaho, at
Florida State. Why can’t that be 6-0 or 5-1? The only scary game is Georgia;
Vanderbilt is bad, Missouri plays defense like a Big 12 team, South Carolina is
average, Idaho is Idaho, and Florida State finds new ways to lose every week,
though this game doesn’t matter for the division race because it’s not a
conference game. If they could find a way to beat Georgia, win their remaining
four conference games, and then get another Kentucky conference loss somewhere,
they’d be 7-1 in the league and find themselves in the championship game… where
they’d get annihilated by Alabama. It’d be a Steven Seagal arm break. But still.
They’d be there!
As for LSU, sheesh. I
heaped the most amount of praise I’ve ever given to an Ed Orgeron team on
Friday, only to have them come out and be completely oblivious on offense the
whole game after their first possession. They went for 75 yards and a TD in
3:17 on drive one, only to pick up just 296 yards the rest of the game. I literally had Les
Miles flashbacks watching this one; are we sure he wasn’t calling the plays?
Let’s
be honest here, maybe we all went a little overboard crowning Coach O as a
success at LSU after he beat an awful offensive team in Auburn and a Miami team
that almost lost to Florida State (more on that one later). Those two squads
are AT BEST fringe Top 25 teams, and LSU still has a lot of talent left over
from the Les Miles era. Let’s point this out also; the best two coaches in the
SEC that Orgeron has faced while at LSU are Nick Saban and Dan Mullen, and he’s
now a combined 0-4 against them. Great, he’s beaten Gus Malzahn twice, the same guy who is
supposedly an offensive coach, only his team can’t figure out what to do on
that end with the best or second best returning quarterback in the SEC.
Here's their remaining schedule: home for Georgia, home for Mississippi State, bye
week, home for Alabama, at Arkansas, home for Rice, at Texas A&M. Feels
like there’s a really good shot for them to go 3-3. Just based on the coaching
matchups, I’d rather have Kirby Smart, Nick Saban, and Jimbo Fisher.
What happens when Joe
Burrow is gone after this season? He’s not great, but he’s at least a competent
quarterback. What are they going to do there? Are we sure the Swamp Monster won’t
be on the hot seat soon?
Auburn
and Gus Malzahn scored 9 points against Mississippi State
Malzahn’s Auburn tenure
has been amongst the strangest in the history of college sports. The Tigers
have beaten Alabama twice in his five tries while at the same time having games
like they did on Saturday, where they went on the road against a team with
inferior athletes, didn’t score any touchdowns, and let Mississippi State hold
onto the ball for 41:53 of game time and allowed 349 rushing yards.
Auburn sits at 4-2
overall, virtually eliminated from the playoff discussion at this point, and
they still have games left with Georgia and Alabama. It seems like they’re destined
for four losses, if not more. Normally, we’d be talking about whether or not
Malzahn should be retained, except for the fact that Auburn gave him a contract
extension in the off-season that raised his yearly earnings to $7 million (good
lord) and increased his buyout to $32.1
million. That contract is an albatross for the program, a mind-numbingly
stupid agreement that ties the school to him for years to come. Even if they
were to fire him after the 2021 season, they’d still owe him $16 million. $16
million!
Which brings me to this:
why the hell are these programs handing out these large contracts with enormous
buyouts to mediocre coaches? Yes, I know Malzahn was allegedly flirting with
taking the Arkansas job, but I’d rather let him walk and hire someone else than
give him this much power when he was just 33-20 from 2014-2017. Sure, they beat
both Alabama and Georgia last season, but they also lost four games as well and didn't win the conference or make the playoff. Unless I’m hiring Nick Saban or a select few other guys, it makes no sense to
give these either unproven or above average coaches these ridiculous buyouts
that leave you no flexibility or choice but to be stuck with them. Malzahn wasn’t
getting a better job than Auburn last off-season; if he wanted to go to
Arkansas, good luck, we’ll hire someone else and kick your ass every year.
Florida State blew a 20 point second
half lead to Miami
Speaking
of ridiculous buyouts, we’ve come to Willie Taggart, who would be owed $20
million if the Seminoles decided to terminate him at the end of the season.
Willie Taggart? What are you idiots doing?
Taggart
is also slowly crossing off all the ways to lose a football game. He’s already
done the “Clogged Toilet Bowl Offense” loss against Virginia Tech and the “Get
Blown Out By A Team That Has Inferior Athletes To You At 99% Of The Positions”
loss at Syracuse. This week, he decided he’d go ahead and get the “Blow A Three
Score Lead In The Second Half In A Rivalry Game” loss out of the way. On
Saturday he might try “Hail Mary” and then follow it up the next week with “Outgain
Our Opponent By 300 Yards But Still Lose Because You Turned It Over Five Times”
and then “Call A Timeout To Ice The Opposing Team’s Kicker, Only He Still Gets
The Kick Off And Misses It. On The Re-Try, He Nails It”. I don’t know if
Taggart will get enough games to cross of everything, but he’s damn sure going to
try.
It’s incomprehensible to me how bad of a hire
this has been. How did anyone at FSU think this was going to work out? It was
the car wreck we all saw coming. Taggart is shaping up to be the worst coach at
a blue chip program since Butch Jones.
Kentucky
looked like the old Kentucky again
The Wildcats didn’t run a
single play in Texas A&M territory the entirety of regulation, and their
kicker someone left a 40 yard field goal short
in the overtime. Simply put, this was the kind of performance that Kentucky
would put up all the time before this season, and they looked indistinguishable
from the classic 6-6 Wildcat football teams that we’ve all seen a million
times. UK can still have a great season going forward, but Saturday was a
disastrous showing that will force them to win out if they want to capture the
SEC East for the first time in program history.
As for Texas A&M, I’m shocked at how much
their defense has improved under Jimbo Fisher. Kevin Sumlin’s Aggies couldn’t
stop a nosebleed, and a game like Saturday where they allowed only 7 offensive
points would’ve been impossible. That just goes to show you the power of
coaching, and further evidence of my thesis, that if you have a good coach, he
can get things turned around for you quickly. Jimbo and A&M have a chance
to be really special, maybe even next year.
Notre
Dame knocked off Virginia Tech and took another step towards 12-0 and the
college football playoff
I’ve been on the Irish as
a playoff contender, and they did nothing to dissuade me from that position, as
they went to Blacksburg and dismantled Virginia Tech by 22 points. The offense
has scored 56, 38, and 45 points in the three weeks Ian Book has taken over as the
starting quarterback, and the Irish will be favored in their final 6 games
going forward. There’s no way a 12-0 Notre Dame team gets left out.
Here’s
every team still alive for the playoff
I’m going to start doing
this every week as a way to track who is still alive for the college football
playoff. Every Power 5 team with more than one loss is a cross off; we’ve never
had a two loss team make the playoff, simply because it’s really difficult to
get at least four teams that don’t finish the season with only one loss or
fewer. I’m also eliminating every Group of 5 team (yes, including the “national
champions” from last year, UCF) because none of those schools are ever making
the playoff, leaving us with just 22 teams (* by the one loss teams).
SEC: Alabama, Georgia,
LSU*, Florida*, Kentucky*
ACC: Clemson, NC State,
Miami*, Duke*
Big 12 (yes, I wouldn’t
put them in, but that doesn’t mean the committee won’t): West Virginia, Texas*,
Oklahoma*
Big 10: Ohio State,
Michigan*, Penn State*, Wisconsin*, Iowa*
Pac 12: Colorado,
Washington*, Washington State*, Oregon*
Independents: Notre Dame
Georgia has a chance to
eliminate LSU, Florida, and Kentucky from the playoff conversation completely
as they’ll play each of them in their next three games. Duke definitely isn’t
making it, though they’ll have an “elimination game” with Miami on November 3rd
assuming they both make it that far without another blemish. I’m not sure how
good NC State is, but they’ll get their shot to prove something when they
travel to Clemson on October 20th. West Virginia could knock out
both Texas and Oklahoma in the month of November (assuming both UT and OU win
all their games up to that point), or be knocked out themselves if they lose
both. Wisconsin at Michigan this weekend is a playoff elimination game, and the
Big 10 Title Game could potentially be a de facto playoff quarterfinal game if
both teams make it their with one loss or fewer. Washington and Oregon play
each other in Eugene on Saturday in what is another playoff elimination game.
My
College Football Playoff Top 4
Alabama
The Tide scored on their
first play from scrimmage and defeated Arkansas 65-31. Tua’s stats this week?
10-13, 334 yards, 4 touchdowns. That sounds like a video game.
Ohio State
The Buckeyes slogged
around with Indiana for a while before pulling away late to win by 23. Their
next three games are against Minnesota, Purdue, and Nebraska, schools with a
combined record of 5-10. Shouldn’t be a problem. They’ll be 9-0 when they play
Michigan State on , November 10th.
Notre Dame
The Irish, outside of
Alabama, have the best chance to finish the regular season undefeated, due to
the weakness of the back half of their schedule.
Georgia
Thanks to LSU’s poor
performance and loss, the ‘Dawgs find themselves back in the Top 4 fresh off a
throttling of Vanderbilt. Their next four games are all against ranked teams
and could be very challenging: at LSU, Florida in Jacksonville, at Kentucky,
and home for Auburn. Sure, they can win all those games, but they’ll need to go
at least 3-1 if they want to keep themselves alive for the playoff.
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